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October 27, 2011

Mango Curves Quilt Finish!

This is the best "quilt-by-accident" (or is it on-accident?) I've ever done! I was practicing sewing curves and this is what happened. I love the color of the swerves, I love the backing (snuggly blue flannel with a green stripe) and I love love love the free-motion quilting I did.

Here's a picture of my test swatch of FMQ at the sewing machine table:

- To make this design, start with a small circle, when you get to the end of the circle, make a larger circle, when you get to the end of that circle, do some squiggles until you are in a spot for a new one, repeat, repeat, repeat ....

-This pattern was easy on the table and on the frame, it didn't look quite so round when I was doing the design on the frame but I'm pleased with the look anyway.

A look at the quilting from the back:

And here's a closeup of the quilting from the front, I love the way the yellow thread looks on the white!

Binding this quilt turned out to be quite the adventure! I miscalculated how much fabric I would need for the binding and I was a little over ONE strip too short, to solve this I figured I would do some scrappy binding and add in some coordinating fabric from my stash (I did not feel like driving across town to the fabric store during rush hour) ... I was sewing along thinking I had solved my problem and then I realized, I was way short even with the scraps I had added in. I had half a strip from the leftovers so I did some serious MacGyver-ing and made one last strip. It worked out fine, but it was pretty annoying. Moral of this long binding story, double check your math!

MacGyver-ed binding! Not recommended!!!

Have you ever had to MacGyver some part of your quilt? Did it work out better than your original plan?

I'm linking this up with Try New Things Thursdays since I was trying curves AND scrappy (REAL SCRAPPY) binding!

12 comments:

The quilting and binding both look fantastic!!! I love the yellow thread as well. I think I tend to try white a lot because it is "safe" and then when I am done I wished I would have used a color. I love doing scrappy bindings, but yes, they do take a lot more time. And I have more McGuiver moments than I care to admit to. Just recently, I finished quilting a blanket and starting whipping on the binding before I realized that my backing fabric had doubled over in the quilting. I ended up cutting it out with tiny scissors. Yup, McGuiver moves to the rescue :)

I've been experimenting a lot of different colored threads and so far I really like Grey and Yellow the most - they both have color but don't detract from the fabrics and give the quilting a bit of pop!

I'm glad other people have MacGyver moments too! I'm thinking about starting a blog hop called "MacGyver Mondays" so I can hear more stories about these stories LOL !!!